1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, such as an ink jet printer, and a printing method used for the printing apparatus.
2. Related Art
Some known printing apparatuses are ink jet printers that eject ink (liquid) onto recording media (target).
Some of such printing apparatuses include an ejection section that ejects ink (e.g., colored ink) onto a medium and an irradiation section that irradiates the ink on the medium with ultraviolet light so as to cure the ink. The ink which has been ejected from the ejection section and deposited on the medium is irradiated with ultraviolet light so as to be cured, and, as a result, an image is printed. JP-A-2003-191594 is an example of related art.
Various imaging effects are required to be provided by the above-mentioned printing apparatuses.
For example, in order to provide a glossy-surface image, which is required, colorless ink (clear ink) is ejected by the ejection section. The colorless ink is ejected onto colored ink that has been deposited on a medium (the colored ink has been cured by irradiation with ultraviolet light), and subsequently the ink is irradiated with ultraviolet light. Hence, a layer of the colorless ink (flat layer) is formed on the colored ink, so that an overall glossy image is printed.
However, although hitherto known ink jet printing apparatuses can apply the above-mentioned gloss to an image, it is difficult to form an image with an uneven surface and thus to give the image a three-dimensional appearance, a so-called textured image.